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From Web to Print: ‘The Onion’ a case model of reverse publishing
Peeling the Onion from Web to Print
The Onion debuted a print product in Washington, DC last week, on the heels of it’s web-TV launch [See post, Onion TV Live Now].
The Onion’s media kit claims a healthy print circulation of 610,000 weekly, with print products in nine markets (not including the recent DC launch), and demographics similar to alt readers [See AWN demographics].
And hey, since faux-alts and dailies have been stealing ideas from alts for years, it seems only fair to size up this latest addition to newsracks.
The Onion’s DC print product is a great example of a reverse publishing model – content that is produced and then adapted for its respective mediums.
Graphs created by LauraFries.com using OmniGraffle
In its inaugural edition, the printed version of the DC Onion featured ‘news’ articles that published throughout the week on theONION.com. A.V. Club content (Arts and Entertainment Coverage) including both full-text articles (published on Friday online, vs. the paper’s Thursday), and excerpts of older reviews for capsule movie reviews.
Local events coverage – A.V. Washington, D.C. – featured 150 word capsules highlighting music, film and comedy events, with short articles written locally. None of this material currently appears on an Onion website.
What ideas can I steal?
- Different editorial calendars/publishing schedules for content that appears online and in print
- Formats that suit the medium: short, scannable excerpts in a commuter-based print product, and lengthier, more comprehensive coverage online.
- Brand leverage: Just as the Onion uses its brand name familiarity to launch new products with authority, so too can alts!
Thoughts?
Why is the Onion expanding into print markets at a time when so many others are shrinking their print operations in favor of web publishing? Will the Onion create city-specific web presences? What other web/print entities does the Onion have partnerships with?
Huffington’s Theory of Publishing Promiscuity
“Is it Ginger or MaryAnn?” Arianna Huffington rhetorically asks the audience at the 2007 American Society of Newspaper Editors [ASNE] Convention during a panel entitled “Lessons from the Digital Revolution.” The panel was filled with top execs and writers from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post – and the conversation turned to Arianna’s theory of web publishing promiscuity.
“I say, let’s have a three way!” she flamboyantly declares.
Visuals aside, Huffington is addressing one of the major issues in digital publishing: whether to restrict all of one’s content to an individual website – or whether to permit cross-publishing or cross-posting.
Cross-publishing is the practice of allowing other websites to re-print the full text of your content (text, images, etc.) with full attribution to the original author/publication and a link to the original source.
Advocates believe that publishing their content on other websites exposes their work to wider audiences, and drives traffic back to their site when interested readers click to read more.
Detractors prefer to publish all of their content solely on their own site, both to build up their paper’s site as a destination, and in order to sell ads around that content.
HuffingtonPost.com co-founder Kenneth Lere echoed Huffington’s proclamation by stating that “Ubitioquity is the new exclusivity” and that is “the way we manage our business” at the HuffPo.
Perhaps predictably, Donald Graham, CEO/chairman of the Washington Post Co., is not an advocate of web publishing promiscuity, stating: “No newspaper or one site will do everything in this time, but what the Post can do that is special is to produce something that people want to come back to.”
Read Editor & Publisher’s coverage of the same session
What does this mean for alts?
The cross-publishing debate is a massive one – especially for alt-papers. On the one hand, there is the opportunity to gain new audiences through links. On the other hand, there is the potential loss of traffic-based ad revenue and loss of branding identity.
Here in the AAN offices, I had a healthy debate with a staffer about the promiscuity theory. What’s your take?
